Harlem Heights 1776

 

 Brig. General Nixon's vanguard make contact with Major General Leslie Light Infantry Brigade. Bottom of the screen is North and the top is South. Key features are Clarmont Hill with the LI on top. Hoaglandt Farm behind the buckwheat field on a hill, behind that the orchard on a hill and behind that Jones's  House also on a hill. Both the southwest and northwest have thick woods.

A few days ago I had a few friends over for an AWI game using the excellent Field of Battle 3 ruleset and a scenario from the always good British Grenadier scenario books. The battle we fought was Haarlem Heights 1776. The battle itself took place right after the American's major defeat at Long Island. The British with justification felt the Americans were so inferior that they let their guard down and fell into a trap and were defeated. The British were arrogant and while pursuing American skirmishers with their light infantry actually blew horns like they were on a fox hunt just to give you an idea of the mind set.  The battle itself wasn't a major engagement(although not minor either) with less then 1800 a side actually involved, but it was a significant battle in which the Americans defeated the British on the open field for the first time after a series of defeats and gave the Americans a much needed morale boost. If you check out wiki that will give more detail of the battle itself as it would take too much space in an already long post. 

The British ( Mike and Sebastian)

CinC-  Gen. Howe 

Major Gen. Leslie , Lt. Col. Stirling, Col. Von Donop, Major Gen. Cornwallis, Major Gen.Vaughan, 

The Americans (Franz and Myself)

CinC- Gen. Washington 

Major Gen. Greene, Brig. Gen. Nixon, Lt. Col. Knowlton, Brig. Gen. Sargent, Brig. Gen. Beall

Basically the objective for the American players is to defeat the British light infantry under Leslie and the early reinforcements of  Stirling and Von Donop before the later arrival of the 33rd under Cornwallis and the elite Grenadiers of Vaughan.

Gen Washington and Howe while technically are commanding they both pretty much just funneled in reinforcements using their staffs to figure out where, but did not really get very close to the action therefore I didn't allow them to command individual brigades.

Another factor in the battle is in that most Americans were regulars, but quite inferior to British  regulars at this point so I gave them militia status and actual militia as rabble, with the exception of riflemen units who were given full regular status. 

The last factor is low ammunition for both sides which increasingly became a factor in the battle and so much so it pretty much ended the fight historically. With this in mind about mid point in the game and after a unit had fired it had to make an ammo check before it could fire again. Any fail was out of ammo for the rest of the game. While it didn't decide the game it sure did make it's presence known!

Leslie's light infantry take positions at the fence line and atop Claremont Hill. 

Nixon's riflemen vanguard are engaged by British light infantry, but cause no casualties.

The riflemen move to outflank the light infantry.

Nixon's main body arrives giving an unpleasant surprise to Leslie!

The arrival of Nixon's main body pins the British Light infantry allowing the riflemen to continue their outflanking maneuver.

Completing their outflanking maneuver the riflemen deliver devasting fire into the light infantry.

Disaster for the British as one Light Infantry battalion is routed from the field! 

Leslie retreats to the remaining light infantry battalion on Clarmont Hill as Nixon's men pour over the fence.

Nixon sends half his men to deal with the rest of the light infantry and the other half in the direction of Hoaglandt farm on the opposing hilltop. Things are looking grim for the British!

Stirling's 42nd Foot brigade arrives and not a moment too soon for the British!

Stirling orders the 42nd into line atop Hoaglandt farm and the nearby buckwheat field while the accompanying 3 pounder artillery prepares to engage. 

Knowlton's Rangers arrive out of the woods to support Nixon's advance on the British in the center.

Sargent's unattached infantry and 6 pounder take the field with Gen Greene taking command of them.

And Gen. Sargent arrives with the rest of the brigade. 

Greene and Sargent take their troops on a march around the woods to the west in hopes of outflanking and trapping the British on Hoaglandt farm and Clarmont hill.

Nixon's men begin exchanging gunfire with the light infantry on Clarmont Hill.

Nixon's troops take cover behind the fence and stone wall as the British 3 pounder engages. Nixon is waiting on Greene and Sargent to get on the British flank before risking going into the open field.

The American flank march is almost there until the timely arrival of Von Donop's Hessians near the stone wall and opposite the orchard.

Greene immediately reacts to the Hessian threat and deploys his units into line and get's the 6 pounder to engage the Hessians.

The unexpected accuracy of the American artillery pushes the Hessians off the wall.

This gap was all the Americans needed who daringly poured over the walled and assaulted the Hessians!

 

Von Donop watches in disbelief as his troops are routed from the field!!(newly painted unit....)

Beall's Flaying camps arrive which are rabble militia. Had to use 2 hessians stands as I ran out of rebel's.

In the gunfight between Nixon's regulars and the Light infantry Nixon's men were getting the better and decided to launch an assault to knock the light infantry off Clarmont hill.

Big mistake as the light infantry threw back the Americans causing one battalion to fall back and the other to route! While this helped the British their morale was still getting close to breaking.

Just as Nixon was getting ready to make a push on both Clarmont hill and Hoaglandt farm he was shot dead from his saddle from a stray musket ball temporally paralyzing his brigade until a new leader could take command! 

Some welcome relief for the British with the arrival of Cornwallis and the 33rd near Jones's house.

What do you mean you forgot the second box of ammunition! The British 3 pounder withdraws from Hoaglandt farm out of ammo.

With the Hessians out of the way Green moves to the flank of Stirling who in turn orders one battalion to turn and face the threat. In a blaze of musketry they send the artillery reeling backwards. 

Now that Stirling's artillery was forced to withdraw and his right flank forced to respond to Greene's flanking attempts Knowlton's rangers move through the buckwheat field and send repeated waves of musketry into the 42nd's flank.

Which caused the 42nd to break and run in the direction of Jones house to the shock and dismay of the retreating artillery not to mention Stirling himself! The British are out of morale chips making them vulnerable to the army morale card when drawn.

Vaughan's Grenadiers arrive, but are they too late!

The army morale card was drawn and the British failed their roll causing the crown forces to quit the field. The American's win!

What a great game it was! Remarkably the game followed history pretty closely even using our own adaptations to the scenario. The American Flying columns and the British Grenadiers also did not take part in the fighting at the end as I believe was historically the case. If the British were not so unlucky in losing one of their light infantry units and the Hessians so early I have little doubt the Grenadiers would have made short work of the Americans if allowed to get into the thick of the fighting.

I want to thank everyone who took part in the game for the good atmosphere and fun we had in playing the game! I'm really looking forward to the next one!

Although my AWI collection isn't small I realized it's still not near as big as I want it to be and I have lots more to do! Getting all your figures on the table can be a real morale booster in getting more things added.

Also my initial set of pictures came out so bad, that I basically had to re-do the game from memory and take new pictures of the game. Great thing about having a hobby room and the figures all yours. I'm still learning the camara so not where I want to be yet, but getting better. My friend Mike took some great pictures of the game in actual progress so please go visit him at https://dreispitz.blogspot.com/2025/05/awi-field-of-battle-3rd-edition-battle.html . Because of this the unit's won't look exactly the same in terms of composition of figures.

Thanks for viewing and reading until the end of a very long post!